JIMENA: Compromise and Refugees on both sides
June 8th 2003

A subscriber forwarded this to me, in the hope that it will remind us that during the 1940s and 1950s, large-scale immigration occurred in the Middle East and it went both ways. The issues of migration and returning to homelands crop up in issues like the right of return.

The right of return refers to the ability of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants to move into Israel. No Israeli government will ever accept this, ever. Why? Because the 700,000 Palestinians displaced in 1948 have blossomed into 3.5 million, most of whom have never lived in Israel. Given that there are 5 million Jews and over 1 million Arabs already in the State of Israel, the right of return if acted upon would instantly make the number of Arabs roughly equal to that of Jews, and would surpass them after a decade or two. This would invalidate the whole concept of a sovereign Jewish nation and Israel’s raison d'être.

Israelis know this, and Palestinians know this. That’s why it’s so disconcerting, to say the least, that Palestinians leaders continue to insist on the right of return, which most Israelis interpret to mean a euphemism for destroying Israel demographically. Mahmoud Abbas, in his first interview with an Israeli newspaper (Ha’aretz), said, “We cannot accept relinquishing the right of return.” This, though Arafat himself wrote in a New York Times editorial that although he supported the right of return, he would respect Israel’s demographic concerns. UN General Assembly Resolution 194 offers the alternative of ‘compensation’ for those not wishing to return. It was compensation that Barak offered at Camp David on this issue, while Arafat continued to insist on his maximal demands for a full right to return.

A rejection of the right of return is not a denial of it. It’s just to say that it’s a practical impossibility. I don’t question that some Palestinians have a right to return to their parents’ or grandparents’ homes. It’s just that they cannot exercise that right. Israel’s inability to accept the right of return is not a comment on the legitimacy of Palestinian desire to return. But it is to say that war and politics have changed the composition of the Middle East permanently, and it can never revert back to the way it was. Abjuring the right of return as a practical possibility on the part of the Palestinians is a consequence of peace.

Israelis don’t want to return to their homelands in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Libya and the Gulf, and have long given up receiving compensation for the billions of dollars in property and wealth confiscated by Arab governments. And the Palestinians don’t have to pay the price of the expulsion of Jews from Arab states. But the ancient Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria, where the Tribes and Prophets roamed and where Jewish identity was first formed is a different, more emotional matter. Still, 70% of Israelis have accepted relinquishing their claims to these lands (and settlements) in return for peace. To many, this comes with sorrow, and a minority will fight it.

But the Palestinians have not done the same. At least in word, they have renounced nothing. Palestinians saying they want to repopulate Jaffa and Haifa is no less than Israelis saying they want to repopulate Hebron and Bethlehem. Abbas must drop the impossible right of return – it is a concession, and a painful one, that must be made for peace.


The article, Strangers in a Strange Land: A fork in the Road Map, appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on June 5, 2003. It's by Gina Malka Waldman is co-founder and co-chair of JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa), whose Web site www.jimena-justice.org.

Here are selections:

"I am one of nearly a million Jews indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa who were forced to flee their ancestral homes in the last 60 years. I am now the voice of a minority culture of Arab Jews who have been ethnically cleansed."

"Jews are the oldest existing indigenous group in the Middle East and North Africa, having lived there for millennia before the Arab Muslim conquest in the 7th century."

"But, for all our contributions, we encountered racism and oppression that ultimately forced us out. In many Arab countries, Jews were never granted citizenship and persecuted under Islamic dhimmi rules. (For more on the status of Christians and Jews under Islamic rule, see www.dhimmitude.org.)"

"No memorial exists to commemorate these once vibrant communities in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Yemen and beyond. My community in Libya, once 38,000 strong, is now extinct. Our cultural heritage has been obliterated.
In short, more than 2,500 years of history has vanished. As we say in Arabic, ma fdel shei -- there is nothing left. I cannot even go back to Libya to visit my grandfather's grave."

"The Palestinians have arrived at a fork in the road. Their challenge is to choose whether to continue along the road of hatred or turn toward reconciliation and tolerance. As their Middle Eastern sister, resettled in America, I pray that they choose the right path."